Bill Would Keep Sex Offenders From Doing Something, Maybe. It's Hard To Tell

By Craig Malisow Mon., May 18 2009 at 2:17 PM

Categories: Crime, Political Animals

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Florence Shapiro

Sometimes legislative bills don't seem to be written in plain English, so it's always best to go straight to the bill's author to find out what's up.

But a bill authored by Republican State Senator Florence Shapiro of Plano seems remarkably straightforward: It prohibits registered sex offenders from "using the Internet to access pornographic material."

It would also establish a means for "a commercial social networking site or Internet service provider" to be provided with a list of said perverts, so such businesses can alert authorities if they're using those sites to prey on kids.

But what got Hair Balls was that first part -- about not allowing these pervs to look at any pornography, or as stated later in the bill, anything deemed "obscene." (The bill refers to the obscenity section of the penal code, which offers different definitions of obscenity, which include simulated sex.) Even though, as everyone knows, there is hardly any sex stuff on the Interweb, how would something like that even be enforced?

So Hair Balls called Shapiro, to see if she could elaborate. She was on the Senate floor as we talked, which might account for some of the ensuing strangeness.

Hair Balls: Does [this] mean that you do not want anyone convicted of a sex offense to look at sex by consenting adults online?

Shapiro: I have no idea... this is an agreed-to bill that came with the Attorney General, myself, and the online providers. It's model language that came out of [the American Legislative Exchange Council].

(OK, so it turns out Shapiro wasn't sure of all the particulars in the bill she attached her name to. But she explained to us that "The whole purpose of this is that we are seeing more and more young people on the Internet, and social networking of course is one of the major issues."

She then said that the bill would prohibit certain sex offenders from joining social networking sites...which it doesn't.)

Shapiro: We need to be able to have that list [the sex offender registry list] and make that list available to the social network providers to prevent these people from going online.

HB: So they can't even use Facebook or MySpace, then, to talk to other adults?

Shapiro: Oh yes they can. Absolutely.

HB: They can?

Shapiro: I'm sorry, what did you just ask me?

HB: Can they use a social networking --

Shapiro: No. If they are convicted, no.

HB: They can't even talk to an adult.

Shapiro: No, that's correct....Facebook is not one of them. These are social networks. This is like Friendster and MySpace. I don't know that...I don't remember about Facebook....Facebook is one of them, you're right, you're right....No, the answer is no they cannot....This would prohibit them, if they're on probation or they're on parole, this would prohibit them from using the Internet for purposes of communicating with minors.

HB: But it also prohibits them from looking at anything that can be deemed obscene, which includes certain movies, certain art...

Shapiro: Are those things on MySpace or are they on Facebook? I don't think they are. They can use the Internet -- they just can't communicate with minors....They can look at anything they want, as long as it has nothing to do with the children.

Um, actually, the bill says they couldn't. So ultimately, Hair Balls wound up a lot more confused than before we even made the call. But the important thing is this: as long as well-informed lawmakers are out there passing sensible legislation that they actually take the time to read (if not write), we should have absolutely no fear for the safety of our children. Or something.

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For those of you who are having to deal with these laws, please join our fight against them at www.constitutionalfights.org
Shapiro protests we must do absolutely everything to protect children then we need to remove ignorant politicians like her and others from office. They lie daily to the public, they put children on a public registry destroying their young lives and they act as if former RSO are the only dangerous criminals alive to harm society. Time for cahgne and reform and educating the public to the facts and truths. www.rickyslife.com or www.freebrandon.org
Sex offender laws mean that just about every victim of a sex offense has to testify at trial. Most defendants in sex offense cases will not take a plea agreement because they know that being deemed a sex offender makes every plea in essence a life sentence. They would rather roll the dice with the jury. Forcing more trials is a bad thing. Many of these types cases are full of reasonable doubt, and it is likely that some defendants who actually did commit the crime will be found not guilty after they decide that they would rather go to trial than to face a life of harassment. This type of nuanced discussion is completely lost. No legislator has ever lost an election because (s)he tried to pass harsher crime laws.
Excerpts from Senator Shapiro's website: http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist8/dist8.htm Senator Shapiro issues while serving in the Senate have been many. As a champion of children, she passed landmark legislation to protect against sexual predators. Her series of bills known as Ashley's Laws, protects against, adjudicates, and punishes sex offenders whose victims are children. These laws, which began in 1995, were national benchmarks, and Senator Shapiro continues to dedicate herself to improving the safety and security of our children. The fact is: Safety and security for children can no longer be claimed, thousands upon thousands of OUR children are being HARMED by Shapiro's landmark legislation. She ignores our needs and pleas for HELP! Our children's safety and security is gone for ever! Who is being saved by Ashley's Law? Ashley was not saved by Shapiro's landmark legislation! In fact after 15 years on death row, Michael Blair the accused, has been exonerated. THE REAL KILLER IS FREE! Can Shapiro face the facts? Ray Allen, the former Texas House Corrections chairman who helped shepherd into law many of the past decade's toughest sex registration bills, said he and his colleagues went too far. �We cast the net widely to make sure we got all the sex offenders. Now, 15 years on, it turns out that really only a small percentage of people convicted of sex offenses pose a true danger to the public,� he said. Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, the powerful Senate Criminal Justice chairman, said: �If we're not careful, we're going to have a sex offender registry that is so large and so encompassing, it's not much good.�
I don't know why the lawmakers do this. My offense was over 9 years ago...since then i have been harrassed at college by campus police until i was so humiliated that i just left, pulled over constantly by police who always state some "nonspecific" reason for pulling me over, stalked by a person from my past who meant to do me harm (she used the online registry Shapiro and others have conveniently provided)-and i was forced to call the police a few times, who ironically could do nothing to help because they actually hadn't "seen anything." I live in a hovel and though i am a very intelligent person i can only do the most menial and lowly jobs because i am blacklisted from working any decent jobs. I usually do not eat well, can't afford medical or dental care of any kind, and consider this computer sometimes my only link to the outiside world (it's not like i can take a lot of vacations). Now they want me off the internet? Why didn't they just throw us all in prison if we were such deviant bastards? There is no logic in any of this. All i keep thinking is that it must be obvious to SOMEONE that i am not dangerous...but every day i wake up to find new restrictions on my person or some new right taken away. I don't care what they do... I know this will never end. I don't care if i die. My life is a prison. But i will say this: I hope they keep hell hot for the ones who torture people unnecessarily with every new hillbilly backwater, nonsensical bill they pass.
We need laws to protect children and women from pedophiles and rapists. But self-serving legislators want you to think there is a child molester and mad rapist around every corner. This fear garners them votes when they pass more sex offender laws. Very few on the sex offender registry are of any danger to the public. To give you an idea of how inflated the registries are--Vermont now only publically lists those that they consider dangerous, which is 1%. That's not a typo, it's just 1%. Texas may have a higher percentage, but it's unlikely to be more than 10%. Why ruin so many lives needlessly? Why treat consensual relationships between those close to the age of consent the same as the case of a molested 5-year-old? It makes no sense. The public must demand reform of these laws to insure that law enforcement and tax dollars go to protecting against those who are actually a threat. Don't let Shapiro and her kind get away with this.
LOL How did this woman get voted in?? I am a rebublican, but I would never vote for her. To pen your name so something that you do not understand, and obviously never read, is just....stupid. My son is a RSO and can't even own or use a computer much less look at porn, and his offence had nothing to do with the internet or computers. More thoughtless dribble.
WifeofanSO said what needed to be said splendedly. All the harm is traceable back to the lawmakers who could care less how imbalanced, cruel, and hateful a law is. International CURE, Reform Sex Offender Laws, and WAR, and others can help educate any of you who haven't the slightest clue what lawmakers are doing to destroy lives from the prepubescent to the adult who has done nothing worthy of the sex offender label. How about those who have actually molested a child? Many are salvageable but our governments don't care about salvage. The Adam Walsh Act is a prime example of that fact. Broad and spaces laws that tend to do nothing but destroy. If none of you have ever read a sex offender law, do so. Crafty and confusing language, open to many interpretations, and so broad as to capture the inane offense and make it into a felonious affair. I would venture to say that more than half of person's convicted of molestation need more group and personal therapy than they need the rotting atmosphere of prisons, which leaves us with the truly dangerous psychotic habitual violent offenders, or does it? Lawmakers regardless of the state they reside or the position of their senators and representatives in Washington, D.C., most are gutless swine without the courage to do anything that does not benefit their political image and their chance of re-election. These are reasons why activists for the other side are always needed. When advocates for insane punishments continue to promote insanity, activist from the other side, the sane sides are most certainly needed to counteract the hate based extremism of those who are always calling for the heads of others. As founder of a website, Gimeweb I have poured through a lot of information and data, and what is always most striking, is that lawmakers omit information, lies to the public because they can get away with it, and they are impervious to the suffering and pain they cause with what has become standard lawmaking, expediency and broadness. That takes care of long sessions of real thinking - got to get home and woo the people.
My husband is now 37. He touched the clothed boob of a 14 yr old when he was 19, unaware that his "flirty companion" was underage. Fortunately for him, he figured it out after the feel of the chest and noticing something wasn't quite right. After having her confess her age, he sent her home. He knew she was jailbait and wasn't willing to get himself into a sling. But sadly, his problems were already started the moment he touched her. He's now a convicted FELON/Sex Offender. Has he ever comitted another crime since? Nope. Has he been in trouble for another sex crime? Nope. But now, we're married, have four children and our entire family is harassed, run out of a place to live, and forced to live in an RV (easier to move when the pitch forks come out) and homeschool (easier to continue an education for the children after we have to move ... again), all because the media fuels a frenzy of fear, and the stupid politicians like Shapiro come out with another beautiful money making, feel good law that essentially further ruins our lives. Should I stop loving my husband and seeing the GOOD in him because my life is made hellish? Perhaps, but then there's a place in hell for me when I become so shallow and self-motivated. I believe the man deserves love and forgiveness, as many who made an honest mistake deserve the same. There's no reform in any of this. I know. I walked through the hell with my husband for years now. We've paid more than $500,000 in lawyers fees, fines, counseling sessions, polygraph fees, plethysmograph testing to prove he's safe, moving, and etc... We could have bought a house by now, bought a car, made a college fund for our children, and even helped someone else who needed some help. But we're too busy supporting the state and their crooked criminal politicians. So thank you American. Our next step? Soon as the civil war hits, we're seeking assylum outside of the country for violations of our rights, and unsafe living conditions within the country. I thought my country loved me as much as I loved it. Apparently, if I'm not rich, foreign, or politically involved, I do not matter. This is the message my husband and I have been given through all of the retroactive law making and punishment that never ends. This is the message my children are learning through the suffering they endure at the hands of the government. Sure, they may believe they are protecting children, but what they forget about are the children born of these men and women who are tossed back out into society without so much as a pot to p*** in and a whole nation of angry, judgmental, pitch-fork carrying citizens. It's a sad thing for me to hear my husband say, each time a police officer pulls me over after running my plates just because they are bored and they see Sex Offender pop up - I know that my chances of survival just decreased by 25% because it doesn't take much for them to turn off the cameras, pull out a gun and shoot me in the head on the spot and then later claim I tried to do something which rendered the killing of me valid. All in the name of ridding the world of another labeled American. Gives you such warm fuzzies, doesn't it? Again ... thank you America. Thank you Ms. Shapiro. We couldn't be miserable without you.
As long as good men and women sit by and allow the scoundrels of society, the Politicians and Lawyers to go about making these laws... and do not speak out or do anything... Americans will feel the wrath of the Criminal Injustice system which is only getting worse. Bigger government, more punishing laws, more prisons, more money sent to those who are able to join the system. Hitler knew how to rule, and the politicians and rich of this country are following the same pattern for their rule. The rich and powerful lord over the poor working class with laws of oppression. Until Americans rise up and take back this country from the Republicans and Democrats.. Mark my words.. Oppression for all working classes will grow. www.cfcamerica.org
Age of consent in Texas is 17, not 18.
When it comes to sex offenders, common sense goes out the window. Sex offender legislation has been a labyrinth of well-intentioned but ill-conceived legislation fueled more by fear than by fact. The Adam Walsh Act was passed in an "emergency session" and a vote passed without most members of congress reviewing the law, even the ones who co-sponsored the law. Anyone seen the movie "Evan Almighty?" The main character was a new congressman who was asked to co-sponsor a bill without even reading it, and when he finally reads it he discovers there were major problems with the bill that ended up causing a disaster? Well, that movie isn't too far removed from how Congress actually passes legislation, especially when the words "sex offender" are involved. Who would refuse a law that is sure to make them look good to their constituents. No one put much thought into how these laws work. They never considered consequences like putting teens on registries for consensual sex or sexting, or foring Former Offenders to live under bridges, or subjecting them to vigilante violence or denial of housing in extremes of weather. Here's a good website to check out for more info: www.oncefallen.com
Thank you "Honest Opinion" You summed it up! I think we can all see her agenda..... My son has suffered her rath and many others but the world is waking up because of people like you who inform themselves and others.
Shapiro's hubby is a criminal defense lawyer. She makes the laws, he makes the bucks from the laws. Cozy, isn't it? Another feel-good law coming our way, on the backs of those who are required to register and or course, from the pocketbooks of the taxpayers who are too uneducated to figure this one out.
Florence Shapiro of Texas, proudly states' �If one child is saved, then the laws will be worth what we've done.� Ms. Shapiro, is harming even one child with the mark "SEX OFFENDER" worth what you've done? How about 4000+ Children's lives? Not to mention with Texas's 18 yr. old age of consent 19,20,21 year olds they make up the majority of offenders from consenual acts. Isn't that right MS. Shapiro ? You will gladly destroys their lives for YOUR political purposes, right or wrong? Texas 2007: According to DPS data, Of the more than 47,000 people listed on the state's Department of Public Safety Web site, only 275 are under 18, while 3,853 are registered based on offenses they committed as juveniles. That's ONLY 4000+ children's juvenile records and youthful PAST MISTAKE, are displayed to the world as sex offenders, banished from towns, unemployed, tracked, hunted, hated, forced into poverty and a life of endless turmoil. Now to be banned from internet? Florence Shapiro, takes no accountability to the children actually being harmed, thought. One young man felt the wrath of Florence Shapiro, and the legislator who followed her lead, he now has a place to rest as the media will fail to mention that he was a kid, who suffered at the hands of the politicians who support registration of juvenile offenders. Homeless, poor and now dead. That's rehabilitation promised by the LAW ? Headline: Murdered Homeless Man Was Convicted Sex Offender, Bryan, Texas Excerpts: A 20-year-old homeless man whose body was found in an abandoned building in Bryan was a convicted sex offender. It should read: At 14 years old, an adjudicated juvenile's life is of no value. Forced to be homeless, unemployed and labeled on the Internet as a sex offender, has been bludgeoned to death at 20 years old. Florence Shipiro, influenced this young boys, painful and disheveled life. Lets give her another "Child Advocacy Award", NOT Legislators take an oath to protect our citizens, it means all of them, like or not, she has FAILED!
Sex offender bandwagon, indeed. Trolling for votes by creating the illusion of concern about public safety. And because the public is already scared to death, this sort of stuff usually serves to reinforce their fears. Problem is, most sex offenders don't commit repeat offenses and most sex crimes, by far, are committed by someone other than a registered sex offender, like a teacher, cop or coach, or even a parent. I am amused and dismayed by Sen. Shapiro's lack of familiarity with her own bill. But, after all, this is a representative democracy and most voters are pretty much unaware of how their government works, too. Why would Shapiro be different?
More often than not, Legislators have no idea what is in the bills that they assign their names to. Am I surprised by her vagueness, or her being distracted? Nope. That's standard operating procedure for them. Their only true intent is to win votes. And if that means that they jump on the sex offender bandwagon to get there, then so be it. But watch out folks, DV, DUI, and Drugs are next... Now how many people are going to be "registered"... Makes you wonder where this country is going...